when Bar Harbor Smiles Bor Harlor in 1898 THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE VOL. VIII. AUGUST, 1898. NO. 5 WhenBarHarborSmiles By Freeman Tarbush Illustrated ByW.L.Greene HERE was some- beautiful and for the scenically and fash- thing SO convincing ionably grand, has gone astray SO many in the way that times, that you can scarcely blame me, a Maconions said we supposedly intelligent being, for having be- ought to take a stroll down the Maine come a bit skeptical as to his judgment and coast and visit Bar Harbor, that I his geography. I won't undertake to tell had not the presumption to gainsay him. you, for instance, on how many occasions Maconions, by the way, is a fellow-traveler we've started for a prospective paradise and of mine, in whose honored company I have fetched up at a positive purgatory, or calcu- jaunted over a good piece of this stilted lated on reaching one side of the Alps and platform, the world, and in whose powers found ourselves on the other, because all of observation and facetiousness of con- this would not be saying the gracious thing versation I take a great delight. He is all of my guide, philosopher and friend, but I right, Mac is, but he errs supremely in one may say, rendering unto Cxear his due, respect; he still persists in thinking, even that about once in every hundred shots Mac after untold evidence to the contrary, that makes a mistake and strikes the bull's-eye. next to Badaeker there is only one other And he hit it squarely when we went to authority of a really reliable nature who can Bar Harbor. guide you to the few chosen and celestial Impressionally, Bar Harbor, after you spots of this fair earth, and that this author- once reach it (an experience, by the way, ity is Marcus Maconions, Esquire. Now as the Selectmen of the universe chose to this Badaeker II., in his search for the conceal it on a desert isle off the extreme 396 WHEN BAR HARBOR SMILES northeastern coast corner of the United world save at Bar Harbor. Afterwards a States), strikes one as a heterogeneous mix "rig" of the buckboard variety claimed us, ture of what is and what has been, or, if and we were presently charioteered at a you prefer, a compound consisting of forty gallop. away from the pier and the throng per cent. defunct fishing village and sixty of smartly rigged traps and still smarter per cent. modern mansion life. Mac, whose dressed girls, clustered there to welcome imagination is like a rubber-band, went a the coming guest, up a hill of about forty- step further and characterized the place by five degrees into the heart itself of Bar Har- saying that it was a judiciously concocted bor, the golden. salad of Gloucester, Norway and Switzer- land. It is possible that he was correct about his first ingredient, but concerning There is nothing about this northern the other two he knew not whereof he Bermuda that inclines one to place it as a spoke, for Norway he had never seen and town in the same category that boasts of Switzerland his train went through in the such boulevard and institution-equipped night time. Still Mac wasn't as far from cities as Vienna, Paris or Berlin. True, it the truth as he might have been, for cer- has the inevitable main street, with a very tainly the numerous sounds and deep inlets respectable assortment of indigenous ba- that cut into Mount Desert Island in all zaars and shops along its entire length, but directions are marked in their resemblance there its pretensions end; the other thor- to the fiords of the Scandinavian peninsula, oughfares trace themselves over the island and the similarity between Bar Harbor, in accordance with the wandering propensi- nestled at the foot of rugged mountains on ties of the original cow. The architectural the edge of a beautiful stretch of blue water, and commercial features of Bar-Harbor-be- and a Swiss village, tucked up among the fore-the-invasion may be similarly charac- Alps on some mountainous tarn, is con- terized. Mac said it looked as if they had siderable. Indeed, the parallel suggests it- planted the seed for a scrub variety of self strongly to the incoming stranger, as dwarf fishing hamlet, and when they came the little steamer churns its way up to the to gather in the harvest they found instead landing stage, and one hears shouted in of lobster pots, dories and weather-scarred stentorian accents from the colored stew- huts, chafing dishes, steam-yachts and golf ard, "Bar Harbor! Bar Harbor! Land sticks. Certainly Bar Harbor in the begin- from the lower deck!" ning never dreamt of becoming what it is to-day, and the native Bar Harborite has never quite gotten over the surprise that Well-we landed, Mac head first. He got was occasioned some years ago when an his legs, somehow or other, at cross pur- outside world of wealth, leisure and luxury poses with those of an artist's easel, which came upon him and captured for its own he carried, and in consequence his passage his humble island. I might add, however, down the gang-plank was considerably ac- that he has done his very best to get back celerated. A perpendicular position, how- at the stranger within his gates and make ever, was speedily restored to him by one him pay dearly for his privileges of pleas- of the many hotel-runners, who are always ure, and for this mushroom growth that at hand to hypnotize each alighting passen- has been imposed upon him. How well he ger in favor of his respective caravansary. has succeeded the reader can divine for W.e were just then discovered by the himself when I say that were you to drive groom of our hostess-to-be, and led away, up to a local tradesman in a pair of duck through that motley, leisure-lived crowd of jeans and a Fifth avenue straw hat and in- the faithfully curious which, the world over, quire of him the price of green peas per watches the arrival of every boat, and peck, he would answer very promptly, through an aggregation of about fourteen "Forty cents." Go home, change your ap- million dogs of as many different breeds, parel, saunter around the opposite corner with a yard or so of dachshund thrown in, in some begrimed overalls and a Panama which can be found nowhere else in the hat, and repeat your question. The answer Water e Greena BAR HARBOR FROM THE SUMMIT OF NEWPORT MOUNTAIN. 398 WHEN BAR HARBOR SMILES ally sparkles with the smart colors of the passing show; when dreams and dinners banish work and worry and the life that is temporal and seen puts to rout the life that is spiritual and unseen; the time when all things make for pleasure; the time when Bar Harbor smiles. * We had not been long in Bar Harbor before Mac, according to his own particular way of looking at things, made a very remarkable ON THE discovery. He could not tell me "OCEAN DRIVE." in just SO many words what it was, for Mac and the gift of lu- cid expression are strangers one this time will come quite as promptly, but to the other, but he said that he it will be "Twenty cents." Roses a dollar felt it strongly, although, being an artist, each, land at $25,000 an acre, and the trans- he could not crystallize it into a material portation tariff on a horse from Boston to enough entity to be intelligible to the car- Bar Harbor the same as from New York nal mind. I forgot to tell you, probably to Liverpool are additional instances in you have already guessed it, that Mac is point. And furthermore, I don't know that one of those impractical, head-in-the-clouds there is anything very wrong in this aspect sort of fellows who claim to be something of the matter. Deprive a man of his chosen of an artist, but all the juries I have ever livelihood and subject him to the unsettling known to try Mac's claim have rendered a spectacle of riches and riotous living, and verdict of "Not guilty." Be that as it may, the result will invariably prove the same. what in this special instance he wanted me The princes of plenty must expect to sus- to understand was that Bar Harbor had tain the pleaders of poverty. "atmosphere." As I had already chased my straw hat about half a dozen times for some two blocks' length, I saw no reason The Bar Harbor that ye who are stran- to disagree with him. gers to the spot have come to know "No, no, idiot," he snapped out in answer through what that very imaginative gentle- to my ill-conceived jest, "I mean what the man, the newspaper correspondent, may painter terms 'atmosphere;' relative value have written about the raiments of the rich of color and distance, "effects," high-lights, worn at "Kebo Night," or the doings of and all that sort of thing, you know." the White Squadron officers while in port, "But Mac, don't you know that Bar Har- comes into existence at a jump about the bor as a prime watering place owes its last of June. Previous to this date Mount origin to Church and some other artists, Desert is decidedly a better place in which who made this very discovery of yours to wear thick furs than thin frocks. Then, years ago?" suddenly, like an Arabian Nights' trans- Mac didn't know it, nor was he chagrined formation, comes the Switzerland summer to learn that others had got ahead of him, and the "rush of the rusticators;" the time but he was immensely tickled to think that, when the locally famous "Bar Harbor Ex- with the true instinct of his profession, he press" from Boston unburdens itself by had hit upon the mystic secret of the spot means of a supplementary ferry of a very at first landing. So tickled was he in fact, animated and a very faultlessly attired for- that his enthusiasm for art overcame for eign population, but never of any excur- the moment his inbred aversion to work of sionists; the time when the landscape liter- any kind, and he swore impressively that WHEN BAR HARBOR SMILES 399 the next morning would see him rambling her orange spoon superbly half-way to over the island with canvas and colors in her mouth (she really knew Mac very search of the picturesque. I suggested that well), "you and Mr. Furbush are my perhaps his hostess and friend, Mrs. Farm- prisoners of pleasure. I shall under- ington Hugh-Smith, might have other take to see that you are led about plans for him. And it seems she had. relentlessly. The social animal here must Mrs. Farmington Hugh-Smith, whose be put through all its paces for your special guests we were to be during our sojourn, benefit." was a most active woman of the butterfly "Yes, yes, you are very kind, my dear variety, possessed of a decidedly charming Mrs. Hugh-Smith," interrupted Mac meek- cottage, which overlooked that incompara- ly, "but as we are both a bit used up, hadn't ble sheet of water, Frenchman's Bay, and we better keep quiet and just roam about two daughters, twins, who were likewise as our fancy leads us?" very charming and very hard to tell apart. Mac, I could see, was pleading for an I believe there was also a husband in the order of things whereby he could indulge case somewhere, but in view of his wife's his daubing propensities to their utmost. remarkable penchant for society, he consid- He much preferred the brier roses and the ered it much the preferable thing to go it white marguerites of the inland woods to single in New York during the "heated all the bon-bons and sodas that the most term," with an occasional run out of town, effete civilization could offer him. than to be compelled to trot a fast and in- "No, indeed, that wouldn't do at all, cessant social pace at Bar Harbor. And I, Marcus. You know, I simply couldn't have being also a lazy fellow, with considerable you go away from here as my guest, and aversion to Tuxedo coats and starched ever be able to say in the future that you linen during ninety-degree weather, hon- don't know Bar Harbor. As you are only ored his discretion. Certainly he whose to be here SO short a time, this means that mind is tired with an excess of this world's if I want you, for instance, at ten o'clock to show, and whose body is aweary with over- go canoeing with Miss Huntington, at 10.15 much of a New York winter season, would to tool a 'break' around the 'Ocean Drive' do well to pass Bar Harbor by on the for Miss Nesbit, and at 10.30 to read Le other side. Or, to be more exact, to pass Galliene's new version of the 'Rubaiyat' to by that side of its life which makes only for Miss Mott-Brown, you are to obey. It is ceaseless activity and sport, for on the possible, of course, that between these ap- other hand there are those in Bar Harbor, pointments I might want you to take the and they are many, who hide away in their village cart down to Bee's and get me a box retreats of ease and absorb quietly the of Huyler's, or make arrangements at Staf- beneficial effects of seclusion and complete ford's for a buckboard party up to Jordan's rest. This last is made all the more possible from the fact that the nights here, being never anything else than delightfully cool, are well calculated to make one's slumber hours refreshing. * * Whatever expectations, previous to our arrival, Mac and myself may. have entertained concerning the necessities of our beings for abso- lute relaxation, they were pretty ef- fectually dispelled into the thinnest of thin air by our hostess the next morning at the breakfast table. "KEBO NIGHT." "Marcus," she said, poising 400 WHEN BAR HARBOR SMILES Pond, but these are hardly worth mention- feature, SO it seems now that it is no more, ing. You see I mean to have you enjoy was its "Fish Pond;" the office hallway, yourself. You are far too lazy by nature." which was perpetually thronged with the Further protests were not forthcoming fair youth of the land, and where, if two from my philosopher and friend, SO our hearts inclined single-thoughtward, it was hostess, considering her case as won, pro- supposed to be made manifest. In front of ceeded to dispose of us and our time in "Rodick's," lined up along the board walk, such a manner as to make Bar Harbor were those particular and chosen chariots known to us forever. of Bar Harbor, buckboards, that at the ac- cepted signal would dash up to receive their portion of the serenely indolent and We were told, first of all, that this Maine then gallop bendingly away over the combination of Newport and the Catskills, rugged roads of this little fourteen-mile by the seashore and the mountains, had a past. seven island. It was then also that picnic I don't mean the past that saw the first dis- parties used to frequent that lonely sheet covery of Mount Desert by Champlain in of water up among the hills, Eagle Lake, 1604, and the early life of the Jesuit settle- on whose tranquil surface, at twilight, a ment there, which was finally destroyed by birch bark canoe could glide most dream- the English, or the time when Hendrik ingly, and where a little tavern, dispensing Hudson anchored his "Half Moon" in good cheer of a variety other than could be Somes' Sound in 1609, on the way south to found encased in a Huyler brandy-drop, discover his New York river; nor again its furnished entertainment to man and beast struggling youth as a little coast hamlet, until the moon was high enough in the where the few inhabitants earned a scanty heavens to make a ride home through the livelihood by farming, fishing and ship- woods most ideal. Yet even that is all building; I refer rather to the past it changed now. has experienced even as a watering place, or, more correctly, as a water- ing place considered from the aspect of The old-timers say that all this was too hotel life. good to last, SO accordingly it was not long It is, perhaps, some ten or twelve years before this northern resort, like its more ago that this life was at its height. It was southern rival, Newport, passed, though the pre-private-cottage age, when each sea- later, into the next stage of its develop- son saw new hotels added to the list and ment. Then came the time when the house- old ones extending their accommodations keepers of the different establishments were by means of rambling wings. It was the obliged to close their rooms, one by one, time when the guests of these caravan- when the hotel population diminished per- saries were nothing other than huge fam- ceptibly, year by year, and the shouts of ilies, and the clanship of good camaraderie merriment grew fainter and fainter within and esprit de corps were strong; the time their halls until to-day, "Rodick's," for in- when the world went in for fun and got it; stance, looms up gaunt and impressive, but when a fellow could dance with the best in skeleton-like and deserted. And in place his "ducks" and be a Beau Brummel, as of all this, what? Hundreds of private es- against the present, when in such attire tates, behind carefully trimmed hedges and you can only sit on the veranda and make faultlessly groomed lawns, where, no doubt, comments on the crowd inside; and when the element of luxury is more pronounced, one could do pretty much as a supremely but where the cheerful informality and the lazy nature pro tem dictated and not be good fun of hotel days is surely wanting. scored for it. Paramount in those days was It is true that some of the hotels, con- "Rodick's," a huge barn-like affair of an spicuously the Louisburg, the Malvern and inn that made up in good cheer what it the St. Sauveur, still fairly throb with life, lacked in elegance; an establishment whose albeit, if one were permitted to prophesy, name was synonymous with that of Bar it would be to the effect that they had seen Harbor itself, and whose most winning their best days. Walter L.Greene 98 ANEMONE CAVE. 402 WHEN BAR HARBOR SMILES NEWPORT MOUNTAIN IN A FOG-CLOUD. Mac, as of course might have been ex- Walter Green e pected, was deeply affected to learn that Bar Harbor had had a past. "My usual luck," he grumbled. "I always strike a place when the show is over. What is the good of being in love with the old-fashioned and the picturesque, when wherever you go in search of them you find they have left town the year be- the distant mountain peaks. I told this to fore." the Hugh-Smiths and Mac didn't like it. This sentiment, which I had heard him He said he didn't see the point. express SO often before, reminded me of In lieu of this past disappointment of the time we were up in the Tyrol together, Mac's, our hostess proposed that next day and upon our arrival at one of the hotels we ascend Newport mountain, which we they sent us out after supper to see an did. Now Newport mountain is compara- Alpine sunset from a little grotto. Mac tively a very mild sort of a climb, and, went into ecstacies over it, and kept mur- rising as it does almost directly from the muring from his very inmost and apprecia- shore, gives a most enchanting view of the tive artist's soul, "At last-at last-I have eastern side of the island and its water found the beautiful, the divine." The next approaches. At least, we were assured that evening by chance he roamed off alone the view was enchanting; what we really about a dozen good miles over the valley saw on reaching the summit, what, in fact, to secure a different point of view. What we were entirely enveloped in, was a dense he ran across was not a Turner sunset, but fog cloud. And it didn't console us greatly a very dirty Swiss highlander smoking a either, to be told that this was a frequent Piccadilly pipe, who, in the employ of the occurrence, that really the only great draw- hotel corporation, was very busily engaged back to Bar Harbor were these very same in throwing calcium light effects against fogs, which, over land and sea, would come WHEN BAR HARBOR SMILES 403 upon one without the least possible warning, asked over to Boston to dine, that a vessel and although they were never of that ill-man- had been stuck in the draw of the Harvard nered variety which wilt starched collars bridge. and ruin curls, still they had their disad- * * * vantages. An incident of considerable interest that They cause one, for instance, to come comes across the path of one's observation perilously near losing the Newport path, while at Bar Harbor is the fact that this is which is only half decently marked with the place where Edwin Booth, while on a little stone piles, and to which in one's de- trip along the Maine coast in 1886, called scent one must stick as to a brother. De- together that well-known group of his spite this very general caution, however, friends and organized the club which his this path seems to be one which is most fortune founded, and with which his name persistently lost, although it takes a very will ever be perpetuated. Mr. Laurence courageous man to tell you, face to face, on Hutton, writing in one of the Harper pub- his return to the hotel with any fair com- lications some time ago, alludes to this mat- panion, that it was entirely unavoidable. ter in the following manner: "The history That is quite, you know, as threadbare an of the conception, the birth and the baptism excuse as it is for a Harvard freshman to of 'The Players' has never been fully told say to his hostess on being late when in print. Booth had long desired to do PHOTOGRAPH BY EMERY, BAR HARBOR. "THE BIRTH OF 'THE PLAYERS. ,, THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. WILLIAM B. BISPHAM, LAWRENCE BARRETT. LAURENCE HUTTON. EDWIN BOOTH. E.C. BENEDICT. PARKE GODWIN. 404 WHEN BAR HARBOR SMILES something in a tangible and an enduring errand; to indulge in a siesta in the early way for the good of his profession; and afternoon; to drive, arrayed cap-a-pie in various schemes were fully discussed during one's most correct, on the "Ocean Drive" a fortnight's cruise on the steam-yacht or the Corniche road during late afternoon, 'Oneida' in the summer of 1886. The party and finally, in the evening, to turn music- consisted of Commodore E. C. Benedict, listener or dance-devotee at the "Kebo" or the owner of the yacht, Thomas Bailey the "Malvern," where sweet communion Aldrich, Lawrence Barrett, Mr. William can be held with large ices around small Bispham, Booth and myself. Booth's first tables. There were occasionally a few ir- and original idea was to found and endow regularities in this routine, as Mac found some sort of an actor's home, with sleep- out when Miss Hugh-Smith persisted in ing rooms, writing rooms, a restaurant and trying to make a golf crack out of him by the like. The notion of a club for actors means of a very faithfully followed round of was then proposed. Mr. Aldrich, with a the Kebo links every day, or again when we peculiarly happy inspiration, suggested the were frequently the invited guests on a name of 'The Players,' and the general plan steam-yacht run over to Grindstone Neck, of organization was gradually outlined." for a meal at the inn, or to Northeast Harbor Reproduced elsewhere in this article is a in pursuit of a similar purpose at the Kim- photograph which the artist, Thomas Nast, ball House, both being followed by one of had taken on that occasion for the ground- those sails home when hearts and souls are work of an original painting entitled "The made at peace with the world by the com- Birth of The Players." bined influence of moon and merriment. Mac "took in" all these affairs with Of the shops of Bar Harbor I cannot charming regard to the wishes of his host- speak with authority. I really did not go less, but he was not happy. How could he near them, although I caught in passing be when everywhere he went he carried a the windows frequent glimpses of those ab- stretch of canvas and a pocket full of surd and gorgeously colored articles, Flor- brushes, and yet, preyed upon intentionally ida's shell jewelry, Turkish fineries and by all the girls for chevalier duties, was Japanese wares that are always with us at never for a second permitted even to raise resort spots, and which seemingly are his white umbrella or to start a sketch that never disposed of. Mac, I remember, was would undoubtedly have vastly enriched dragged away one morning by one of the the world of art. And he such an artist girls to go in search of a fancy basket, and besides. although he returned with a most extraor- * dinary account of how he had been carted Our pre-departure period was an event- along the main streets from bazaar to ba- ful one. I never saw a man do SO many zaar, had seen the proprietors thereof de- things in such a short time as Mac accom- posit on the counter for inspection their plished, and he an easy-goer at that. His entire stock, and then had to continue the greatest effort of all was when one day search at the Indian camp amid very greasy he wandered off alone, and found as the looking squaws, who hovered over pots alarming result of his own guidance the and kettles, and very taciturn and stupid- much-famed Anemone cave, and on his re- appearing red-skinned lords, upon whom turn swore that he had actually got in his fair escort had tried without much suc- some work at last and had made an excel- cess to practice the coquetries of her Fifth lent reproduction of the cave in oils. For avenue shopping methods, still the article this we had to take his word, as the paint- in question, the basket itself, was not ing, SO far as we could ever learn, was never forthcoming. Mac said he believed this hung, not even skied. The same day, ac- business was the regular thing, that the cording to his own account, he fished the acknowledged programme of the average entire length of the Maine coast with a pic- Bar Harbor day was to take one's knock- turesque old fisherman acquaintance of his, about rig in the morning and poke about but I have yet to know that the Boston fish town on the least possible pretence of an market or any other market was glutted in WHEN BAR HARBOR SMILES 405 consequence. From this journey he re- clasped my hand. The next day I took him turned to the cottage barely in time to home. assist at a piazza luncheon party, the last of * many he had graced. As he managed dur- As a last word, characterizing Bar Har- ing the course of this function to break bor in a single sentence, I would term it an most of Mrs. Hugh-Smith's hand-painted Americanized species of English country- china, his assistance was not considered seat life that has been grafted on a none too very valuable. His last performance of the prosperous New England fishing village. day was to take Miss Dorothy Hugh-Smith The incongruities that result are consider- out for a twilight canoe on Frenchman's able in number, but of no eternal detri- Bay and in some way or other, known only ment in their nature. The only other pro- to the parties themselves, to upset her. The nounced trait about this much-heralded re- result, however, was by no means disas- sort is that, as Mr. F. Marion Crawford trous, although the affair was a fitting says, it "drinks the cup of summer stand- climax to a very extraordinarily long ing." The season is short and swift. The series of other accidents that had been invading host of lease-lovers that make the happening to them ever since we struck spot what it is, drop down upon it almost Bar Harbor. without warning in a single night, and the I asked Mac late that night, as we were interval is not long before they have all packing, what he intended to do in the way gone quite as quickly. I have read some- of reconciling Miss Hugh-Smith to all where that the Persian poet Saadi says that these fool occurrences of his, and he in a certain obscure region in Armenia shrugged his shoulders and asked me to the people never die a natural death. Once name a punishment to fit his crime. a year they meet on a certain plain and Then it was that I made a horribly rash occupy themselves with recreation, in the guess, and told him that the only where- midst of which individuals of every rank withal to effect a reconciliation that I knew and age will suddenly stop, make a rever- of was circular in shape and could be found ence to the west and setting out at full most satisfactorily at Tiffany's. speed toward that part of the desert, be seen And Mac, stumbling, without the least no more. It is quite in this fashion that at regard as to their existence, against a each season's end the guests leave Bar couple of trunks, came across the room and Harbor. Walter FL Greene AUGUST How sweet to linger where The dark pines nod and sway, Where shimmering gleams of light On leaves and mosses play, Where balmy scented air, With tender fond caress Lulls the weary soul To sweet forgetfulness. - George F. Fe Libary